Foreign investors in renewable energy projects in Spain have hired lawyers to prepare potential international legal action against the Spanish government over new rules they say break their contracts.

It is unclear how much claims might be worth, but international funds have more than 13 billion euros ($17 billion) of renewable energy assets in Spain and say that the government has reneged on the terms of their investment.

The Spanish Parliament approved a law on Thursday that cuts subsidies for alternative energy technologies, backtracking on its push for green power.

That measure, along with other recent laws including a tax on power generation that hit green energy investments especially hard, will virtually wipe out profits for photovoltaic, solar thermal and wind plants, sector lobbyists say.

International commercial law firm Allen & Overy told Reuters on Thursday that it is representing a group of investors in concentrated solar power plants in relation to potential claims under the international Energy Charter Treaty.

Spain’s Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria defended the law in Parliament on Thursday, saying that the measures were necessary to eliminate the accumulated 28 billion euro ($37.4 billion) tariff deficit in the electricity system.

Asked to comment on the potential lawsuits at an event later in the day in Madrid, Soria said the government always had the general interest and the legality in mind when legislating.

The Germans have joined in as well. Funny what a forthcoming election can do to politicians sometimes, i.e. force them to think about the consequences of their policies on the little people – sorry, the voters.

Spain is in a terrible financial state, so these investors, if they get a favourable judgement, will just have to join the queue. What do you think would happen if they tried to have preferential treatment to the unemployed, or the hundreds of thousands public servants in Spain, who have not been paid properly in months?

I hope the Spanish government prevail in court. These immoral and economically destructive subsidies should end. These subsidies are legalised theft from the poor by the better off and as such are ethically indefensible and provide a sound basis for the Spanish Government to prevail in court.

The subsidies are a form of fools gold, for there must always have been a significant risk that the subsidy would be halted. Any government that sees the subsidies through and doesn’t bring them to an end is essentially committing a crime.

Lets hope that sort of common sense comes to Britain soon. Let the people who put solar cells on their rooftops receive the real price for electricity they produce, not a fraudulent price that means that the poor pay more for their electricity than the rich.

Why is the Spanish govt. trying to justify this decision, the value of investments can go up or down, this is the 1st rule; times have changed and the world is in a crisis, tough lick the bubble has burst; what do they think these lawyers can achieve, Spain has a Military, if these companies wish to retrieve their investment and Spain tells them to no, will they send in their army……er, no, oh…..

The investors knew going in that profit depended on government actions. What the government gives, it takes away. The green energy promoters brag that windmill and solar generation can compete with coal and gas. Let them try. For 40 years it has been known that the wind and solar cost of energy production is not competitive for large scale energy production.

This was a scam and the investors should not profit from being involved. pg